


The Force May Not Be With You

by writingmonsters



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Athos Tries to Be Spontaneous, Athos and Porthos Teach Stage Combat, Fluff and Humor, Lightsaber Battles, M/M, Modern AU, it goes poorly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 23:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/writingmonsters
Summary: Athos decides an impromptu lightsaber fight is obviously the way to add more spontaneity to his life with Porthos. It goes about as well as a sword fight in a small flat can be expected to. Porthos decides Athos is not allowed to tell the story of how he ended up with a busted lip.[The basis for this idea was shamelessly pillaged from R00bs_Teacup and battered into an unrecognizable form.]





	The Force May Not Be With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [R00bs_Teacup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/gifts).



It happens like this.

They are both idiots and neither one of them should have expected any other outcome the moment Athos came home compacted into a tight knot of energy and had reached, with the glittery, manic look in his eye, for the prop lightsabers in their kit bags.

One moment, Porthos is slouched comfortably on his half of the bed with his book propped up on his stomach and the next there is a hoarse cry of “ _en garde_ ” and a prop lightsaber flying at his head.

Lucky for Porthos, he has excellent reflexes. He manages to avoid taking a _Return of the Jedi_ replica prop to the head and rolls off the edge of the bed, the rest of his chapter abandoned. “What the hell is this?” And he springs to his feet with the lightsaber in hand just in time for Athos to scramble up and over the bed with his own weapon ready and glowing blue.

“An exercise in spontaneity.” Athos nearly loses his footing in the bedcovers and Porthos makes the most of it, hastening for an area with more room to maneuver. “Are you willing?”

Porthos throws his head back and laughs, a rich, delightful sound. It softens some of the frustration in Athos’s chest. “You just tried to take my head off with that thing and _now_ you want ask if I’m okay with sparring?” Porthos spins the lightsaber in his hand. He wishes their prop swords would make sounds like proper lightsabers, but alas – they aren’t quite that technologically advanced. “I’m gonna make you pay for that.”

Athos grins. “Oh, I hope so.”

And Athos may do tedious things in a legal office and Porthos may be holding adjunct positions at two different universities teaching odd drama courses, but they both know their way around a prop sword. They’ve been doing this professionally for ages – Porthos grew up among theatre folk and stunt people; he was learning stage combat as soon as he had developed enough hand-eye coordination to swing a blade. Athos went to school for this, took classes, has certifications in fancy script on thick stock paper and everything.

They’ve insinuated themselves into the middle of the local theatre company, doing workshops, training up the actors when they themselves aren’t acting in performances.

When they spar, it’s far more than just whacking one another with swords.

Porthos fakes a lunge and Athos knows his game too well, dances backward several steps into the open hallway with a flourish of his blade and the glimmer of careful violence in his eyes.

There’s too many stalled parries and ripostes, feints that are predicted before the other can even make the move, and their blades end up going in circles round one another – too well tuned to the other’s techniques and tricks.

“Are you going to spar,” Athos demands “or are you going to stand there and make eyes at me?”

“I am sparrin’!” Porthos stomps his foot – breaks Athos’s concentration – and lands a light whack to his shoulder through the impenetrable defenses.

Sneaky bugger that he is, Athos cops a direct feint and gets his blade up under Porthos’s – gets his own touch on him and tangles up their blades.

Porthos twists his wrist, drops the blade. Can’t quite manage to break the stalemate that Athos has them tangled up in.

Athos grins at him over the cross of their blades, blue and green reflected in his smirking eyes. “Come on, put your back into it.”

And so Porthos does. With the green and blue lengths of their blades locked together and Athos wearing that keyed-up, crooked smirk, Porthos puts his back into it and gives a good shove, putting all the force into the base of his blade against Athos’s and sending him stumbling backward. And it wouldn’t be a problem – Athos is fleet-footed, one of the most graceful fencers Porthos has ever seen – but Athos is in socks and the floors are bare hardwood and he’s too close to the edge of the stairs and one foot skids out from underneath him and Athos goes down hard.

There’s a _thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk_ as he slides on his knees down half the staircase, and Porthos catches the half-second shocked look on his scruffy face before Athos’s upper half hits the landing. His chin bounces off the step and Porthos is already moving, dropping the lightsaber and falling to his knees beside the splat that is his husband.

“Oh _shit_!” He squeezes Athos’s shoulders, hauls him up as gently as he can into his arms. Athos trembles fiercely against him and Porthos is sure he must be going into shock. “Christ, Athos, I’m sorry – are you okay? Oh god, are you bleeding?” One hand comes up to cradle the hand Athos cups around his mouth and Porthos has an even more horrible thought. “You haven’t knocked out any teeth, have you?”

Athos makes a muffled, snotty sound. Porthos realizes, belatedly, furiously, that he is _laughing_. “M’teeth’re fine,” he mumbles through his hand. “Busted m’lip.”

Porthos squeezes him tight and kisses his forehead, goes to find him some toilet roll to staunch the bleeding and some ice. Athos insists he is fine – is thrilled when he informs Porthos that he will have to give a presentation at the office tomorrow with his lip all swollen and scabbed over – and Porthos forces him down onto the couch, pops _A New Hope_ into the DVD player, and settles in with Athos in the cradle of his thighs.

The title crawl begins and Porthos pets Athos’s hair a little bit to reassure himself that he hasn’t done any permanent damage. “You did this to yourself you know,” he informs Athos over the hum of the Star Destroyer gliding into frame.

“See if I ever try and be spontaneous again.” Athos harrumphs, settling himself against Porthos’s chest. 

* * *

 

Athos tells it like this.

His upper lip is still swollen two days later, scabbed over where he had split it on the hardwood step. They are coaching a group of the youth players through fight scenes for a production of _Othello_ and afterwards the theatre company moves camp to the bar down the street. D’Artagnan, who is stage managing the youth group, buys them drinks from Aramis who bartends but also does half of their set design, and the moment they crowd up to the bar, Aramis’s dark eyes hone in on Athos.

“Now what have you gone done to your lip?” he asks, leaning over the bar to capture Athos’s chin in his grip, turning his face gently this way and that to investigate.

Athos goes cross-eyed, staring down his nose.

Beside him, D’Artagnan takes a swallow of beer and says “bet it was a piercing gone wrong.” He smirks and shrinks behind his bottle when Athos scowls.

“Bet it was a kinky thing,” Aramis conjectures wickedly, waggling his eyebrows.

"Quiet you!” Porthos, who has known and endured Aramis since childhood, shifts his beer to his other hand and reaches across Athos and the bar to cuff the man good-naturedly on the shoulder.

“Oh, gross!” D’Artagnan pulls a face, and Porthos thinks briefly that he has been spending far too much time among his junior theatre kids. D’Artagnan acts more and more like a twelve-year-old every day. “If it’s a kinky thing, don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!”

Athos blinks huge green eyes at him, flummoxed, and in a perfectly mild tone informs them all “it was no such thing. Porthos knocked me down the stairs.”

“ _Porthos_!”

And – that’s not… For the love of… “ _Don’t tell it like that_ ,” Porthos exclaims, despairing. “You make it sound like I did it on purpose!”

Athos considers this, nods solemnly, and applies a wide Cheshire smile to his face. There’s mischief crinkling the corners of his eyes. Porthos doesn’t like it one bit. “Apologies,” Athos hums. “We were fighting and Porthos knocked me down the stairs with a lightsaber. _Accidentally_.”

D’Artagnan gapes at him. “That sounds _worse_.”

Porthos drops his head into his free hand, muttering curses. He loves Athos, he really does. He married the man, after all. But sometimes… “You are not allowed to tell this story," he informs Athos who attempts to appear guileless. Then, addressing their friends he attempts to clarify. "Someone decided to be spontaneous in the form of surprise lightsaber battles. We got a little overzealous in the hallway – I gave him a shove, his legs went out from under him and halfway down the stairs he went. Bonked his chin on the way down.”

Aramis bursts out cackling – a hysterical, infectious sound, sagging against the bar like it is the only thing holding him up. “Oh, Christ,” he howls, burying his face in his arms. “Only the two of you! Y’know, when normal people do foreplay—”

“ _Na na na na_ , can’t hear you.” D’Artagnan nearly spills their beers trying to cover his ears.

Athos raises one very eloquent, very unamused eyebrow.

"Y’know,” Porthos says wearily “I liked it better when you’d just told him I’d shoved you down the stairs.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, look, I actually dug back 8 or 9 years in my brain to when I used to fence competitively to try and remember technical stuff for writing a real, proper sword fight. Yikes.


End file.
